Sorry if I’m mistaken on this, but I’m still new to self-hosting.
Currently I use SyncThing and I love it. My files are accessible to me wherever I am in the world, and it costs me nothing.
I’d like to move more of my life to self-hosted servers. I’m looking at leaving Spotify for Funkwhale. But if I’m reading the materials correctly, I’ll need to set up a domain and pay some upfront costs to make my library accessible outside my home.
Why is that? Is there a way to make my costs 0, the way they are with SyncThing?
But: Depending on your ISP, you may be able to get a free public (but not stable, and no rDNS) IPv4, or you already have an IPv6 range that can directly route to your router freely. And if you need a Domain, you can either rent one for ~5€/Year, or use a free Domain service (eg. ddns.net)